Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
Cassady was having a playdate with Dottie’s youngest daughter, Cricket, at their house in Queen’s Park. Juliet was feeling a bit anxious because the moment they’d arrived, the girls had disappeared upstairs and they hadn’t seen them since.
She was trying not to think about it, sitting at the table in Dottie’s chaotic kitchen, listening to her tell a story about how she’d practically had to steal a car to rescue a fashion shoot that had gone horribly wrong in Mexico. But with one ear permanently cocked for cries of distress from her daughter, Juliet wasn’t taking much of it in.
It took a moment for her to realise that Dottie had stopped talking and was looking steadily at her, one eyebrow raised, her arms folded.
‘You didn’t hear any of that, did you?’
‘Sorry,’ said Juliet. ‘I don’t meant to be rude, but I can’t help it, I’m anxious about Cassady. They’ve been so quiet.’
Dottie laughed. ‘Great! That’s the Holy bloody Grail of parenting. More than three minutes when one of them isn’t snivelling, whingeing or giving you a migraine. What’s wrong with you?’
‘Neurotic single mother?’
‘I don’t get it, though,’ said Dottie. ‘How can someone be like Robocop with her business and then a total sap bag with her family?’
Juliet looked away. She liked Dottie and knew she needed to hang out with other mothers to see how they handled stuff, and it was important for Cassady to have friends, but she didn’t want to get into any big discussions about anything around family. Minefields in every direction.
‘Let’s go up and see what they’re doing,’ said Dottie, standing up. ‘I don’t want you to fret. You work so bloody hard, you deserve a bit of downtime on a Saturday.’
Juliet followed her upstairs. Two little voices were coming from the master bedroom at the front, not Cricket’s room, where they were supposed to be.
‘Okay,’ said Dottie, ‘perhaps we did need to do this.’
She opened the bedroom door and she and Juliet looked in to find the girls sitting on the bed surrounded by sex toys of all kinds and sizes. Each one was holding a whizzing vibrator, giggling and poking each other with it.
Dottie immediately closed the door again and leaned against it, her eyes closed. ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry. We’re doing a tried-and-tested feature and we’ve all taken a load of those things home to, er, test. I thought I’d hidden them well.’
After the initial horror of seeing her precious little tot holding some kind of sculptural pleasure machine – although at least not the large pink phallus Cricket had been wielding – Juliet had to laugh.
‘Shall we go and distract them?’ she said.
Dottie nodded, her eyes wide. ‘You take them downstairs and I’ll do a better job of hiding the gear.’
They settled the girls in front of Mulan with ice cream – not too much and lots of fruit, at Juliet’s instigation – and went back to their seats at the kitchen table.
‘So are you always this uptight on playdates?’ asked Dottie, happily chewing on a Hob Nob.
‘No,’ said Juliet.
‘Just with me then? I know my house is a junk heap, but I’m not a bad mother really. I’ve got my oldest one to age ten without any serious injuries. I imagine a lot of your friends have proper security at home. Too much at risk with the Birkin Bag Room and all that. That nursery Cassady goes to has fees higher than Eton and is harder to get into. I read a piece in the Mail about it. So do your other friends have multiple nannies and armed guards around the kids at all times when you go to their mansions on playdates?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Juliet. ‘This is the first one we’ve ever been on.’
Dottie’s mouth hung open.
‘No one from that nursery has ever invited her,’ continued Juliet. ‘I don’t think any of them are normal enough for something like this and if I’m completely honest, I don’t really have any friends. I have colleagues at my studio, but they are all my employees, so that’s a barrier. So, I work, I hang out with Cassady, I go to the gym and I love looking at paintings. I used go to a lot of auctions to view and buy them, but now I prefer to stay at home with my daughter.’ And not rake up too many confusing memories.
‘That’s not right, Juliet. You’ve got to have mates. Haven’t you got pals from art college, or wherever you went? School? Siblings? Cousins?’
Juliet shook her head, smiling sadly. ‘I don’t have any extended family and I didn’t do the college thing. I hated school and went straight to work as soon as I could. It’s always been my focus.’
Survival. Security. Mum.
‘Well, that stops today,’ said Dottie. ‘You’ve got a friend now. Me. And Rachel – she’s a friend.’
‘We work together,’ said Juliet. I pay her .
‘But it’s all blurred with her. She’s friends with all her clients – and with all her press contacts, like me and all the influencers. It’s why she’s so good at what she does, but we genuinely like each other too. We go on holiday with Rachel and Simon. You and Cass should come next time, we have such a laugh. Meanwhile, we’ll have a dinner, the three of us, and Rachel and I will show you how it’s done. You can’t survive as a mum without friends, Juliet. You’ll go nuts.’
Juliet looked at her, tears momentarily smarting in her eyes. She knew only too well that was true. She’d seen it happen, firsthand. When a woman didn’t have friends. Or when any friends she did have were systematically blocked out of her life.
‘So,’ said Dottie, clapping her hands and jumping up from her seat again and heading over to the fridge. ‘It’s a shame we can’t seal this deal with a bottle of wine, but I can have some and I’ll make you a nice mocktail – and please don’t feel you have to rush off at some official playdate end time. Hang out. Stay for dinner. The girls will love it. I’ll text Rachel and see if she wants to pop over. She’s only two streets away. What do you say?’
‘I say that would be fantastic,’ said Juliet. ‘And you’re right about that nursery Cassady goes to, it’s a very stupid place, with very stupid people. I put her in there because I thought it was the best one, but also because I thought the other parents would be good contacts for the business, which they have been.’
She looked down at the rings on her hands. She’d sold them like penny candy at nursery events, but wasn’t it far more important that Cassady had nice friends? Friends who were the children of normal people, not from that strange world where the kids had their own drivers and regularly flew alone on private planes but had never been to a park or a supermarket.
‘What nursery does Cricket go to?’ she asked.